JACKSONVILLE – The Jets flew back to New York late last night wondering why they bothered to board their Saturday charter flight to Jacksonville in the first place.

After all, they never showed up to Alltel Stadium for their scheduled game against the Jaguars, did they? Was that Hofstra University or the Jets playing the Jaguars yesterday?

If those were the real 2006 Jets being utterly humiliated by the Jaguars 41-0, then it figures to be a long rest of the season.

The Jets, now 2-3 after a second consecutive loss, better pray this was an aberration, otherwise it is going to become late awfully early this season.

The loss was the Jets’ worst since a 45-3 loss at Miami in November of 1986. They weren’t even blown out this easily during the – ahem – two-year Rich Kotite era. It was the third-worst shutout loss in franchise history, falling proudly in place just after a 48-0 loss to Kansas City in 1963 and a 43-0 loss to Miami in 1975.

“Man, that was embarrassing,” Jets defensive end/linebacker Bryan Thomas said, sitting in front of his locker shaking his head.

“Yeah, it’s embarrassing,” Jets right guard Brandon Moore said.

“It feels terrible not being able to get anything going – anything. It’s all of those (emotions). It’s anger, shock, surprise.” Jets linebacker Jonathan Vilma, a defensive captain and leader on the team, said, “I really don’t have an explanation. This was just a flat-out butt-whipping.” Eric Mangini has only a few days to repair techniques and psyches before the Jets play the Dolphins at home on Sunday.

“We’re all shareholders in this crash,” Eric Mangini said. “(The Jaguars) just physically beat us up and out-executed us in every phase of the game. It was offense, it was defense, it was special teams, it was coaching. We all own this one across the board.

“The only way this game is going to mean something is if we can take something away from it, learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Mangini went on.

“This wasn’t improvement. This wasn’t growth and it wasn’t progress.” Where do you start with a loss as pitiful as this?

Right from the start, the Jaguars exposed the Jets’ most glaring weakness – their porous run defense – by gashing them play after play on the ground with their superior two-headed running back tandem of Fred Taylor (21 rushes for 111 yards, 1 TD) and power-pack rookie Maurice Jones-Drew (13-59, 2 TDs).

Much like every team the Jets have faced this season, the Jaguars ran at will on their defense. Not even Chad Pennington, who entered the game with the fourthbest QB rating in the NFL, could save the Jets yesterday. He had one of the worst games of his career, throwing three interceptions, all of which led to Jaguars TDs.

Long after the game, Pennington sat alone at his locker and stared at the statistics sheet. He looked sick to his stomach.

“The first two things I always look at are turnovers and thirddown efficiency,” he said. “We were 3-for-14. You can’t keep drives alive doing that. I’m just disappointed in how I played. I didn’t give my team a chance. You throw three interceptions and you’re not giving your team a chance to win.” Pennington’s first pick, a throw behind Laveranues Coles on the game’s opening drive that was picked by Jags’ cornerback Brian Williams, led to a six-yard JonesDrew scoring run for a 7-0 Jacksonville lead.

The Jags took a 14-0 lead on a 13yard scoring run by Taylor, who ran right up the middle untouched.

A blocked Ben Graham punt by Gerald Sensabaugh deep in Jets’ territory led to the second of JonesDrew’s two rushing TDs, this one from four-yards out for a 21-0 lead.

The Jets’ next possession ended in the second of Pennington’s interceptions, this one by Jacksonville’s Terry Cousin. That led to a oneyard Byron Leftwich scoring pass to George Wrighster on a marvelous play-action fake to JonesDrew. That made it 28-0 with 7:10 still remaining in the first half.

At that point, the Jaguars had 150 yards in total offense to the Jets’ 29.

There would be no spirited comeback in the second half.

“During the fourth quarter, when we hadn’t come back and we felt like there was more (butt kicking) to come,” Jets linebacker Matt Chatham said, “that was a helpless feeling.”